"All the affairs of men should be managed by individuals or voluntary associations, and . . . the State should be abolished." —Benjamin Tucker

"You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." —James Madison

"Fat chance." —Sheldon Richman

Available Now! (click cover)

America's Counter-Revolution

The Constitution Revisited

From the back cover:

This book challenges the assumption that the Constitution was a landmark in the struggle for liberty. Instead, Sheldon Richman argues, it was the product of a counter-revolution, a setback for the radicalism represented by America’s break with the British empire. Drawing on careful, credible historical scholarship and contemporary political analysis, Richman suggests that this counter-revolution was the work of conservatives who sought a nation of “power, consequence, and grandeur.” America’s Counter-Revolution makes a persuasive case that the Constitution was a victory not for liberty but for the agendas and interests of a militaristic, aristocratic, privilege-seeking ruling class.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Jeremy Hammond has written an excellent brief book on the origin of the strife in Palestine. This is the book (available for the Kindle) to read or recommend for anyone who wants to know what’s going on in Palestine but who isn’t prepared to spend her life reading about the matter.

1 comment:

Remember that remark of Murray Rothbard about how national borders in the nation-state system are morally arbitrary.

Why are the national borders in 1861, 1919, 1945, 1948, and 1956 or at any other time morally superior?

Borders in Europe are so fluid that collecting the vastly different maps of Europe is a hobby. German has no fixed borders, as A.J.P. Taylor observed.

Palestinian Revanchism is not different from any other Revanchism in it is a recipe for endless wars over one of many grievances about nationalism and nationhood.

Revanchism is a term used since the 1870s to describe a political manifestation of the will to reverse territorial losses. Revanchism draws its strength from patriotic and retributionist thought and economic or geo-political factors.

German Revanchism and irredentism would plunge Europe back into war as it reclaimed west Poland and the Sudetenland. The Balkans and eastern Europe would be plunged into war to revise the 1945 and 1919 boundaries.

Irredentism is any position advocating annexation of territories administered by another state because of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, actual or alleged.

Irish Revanchism and irredentism over Northern Ireland led to a war from 1922 onwards. Nationalists everywhere are surprisingly intolerant of secessionists and minorities.

The formation of the common market put an end to Revanchism in Europe.

The Center for a Stateless Society

Recognize

I am a Palestinian.

HT: Roderick Long

Anticopyright

Unless otherwise noted, to the extent possible under law, Sheldon Richman has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to all original content on the Free Association blog, through the CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication. This work is published from: United States.

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“Logic and ethics are fundamentally the same, they are no more than duty to oneself.”